Monday October 9, 2023, I am having surgery for a left knee replacement, titanium silver rods and staunch plastic patella inserted where this decrepit, arthritic, bone-on-bone appendage has given its last huzzahs. The new modern marvel of ‘living forever’ in a 73 y/o body that has been around the world a few times and hopes to add one more time to the calendar before I hang up my spurs.
If the honorable if dyspeptic Dr J T, who installed the right knee a year ago March, is as good Monday as he was then in 2022, and the wonderful team at Tidewater PT (Chester, Md) does the voodoo that they doo so well, I hope to be rocking and rolling by Thanksgiving. And traveling again once 2023 becomes 2024.
That’s the plan. The goal was always deceptively modest: “To walk for as long and as far as I want to, or need to, without knee pain.” I was never a nimble climber, so Amalfi is probably not in my traveling future, and I will continue to live vicariously thru the adventures of those friends who hike vertically, but I will return to exploring those parts of this country and this planet that still hold yet to be experienced wonders for me: The Northern Lights, the eastern coast of Canada, perhaps a Norwegian cruise, and one more time in Paris, one of my favorite places on the planet.
That’s the plan… stay tuned.
The Resident Skeptic 
Northern Lights!!!! Yosemite!! Redwoods!!